CW Seed to debut Freedom Fighters: The Ray animated series in 2017

Thursday, the network announced it will premiere Freedom Fighters: The Ray, a new animated series about the titular DC hero, on CW Seed in 2017. This incarnation of the character, inspired by DC Comics writer Grant Morrison’s Multiversity series, will be openly gay.

The voice cast has yet to be announced, but the series will follow Raymond “Ray” Terrill, a reporter who develops light-based superpowers after being accidentally exposed to a “genetic light bomb.” Now under the moniker The Ray, he joins a band of Freedom Fighters to “fight violence and oppression wherever it exists.” The series will be executive produced by Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, the minds beind the CW’s growing superhero family.

Freedom Fighters: The Ray follows in the footsteps of CW Seed’s other DC animated series Vixen, which stars Megalyn E.K. in the title role. The actress made her first live action appearance in an episode of Arrow last season, and an earlier incarnation of Vixen, this time played by Maisie Richardson-Sellers, is joining the cast of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow for season two. The Ray could follow a similar pattern and eventually be integrated into the Arrow-verse on air.